Granted, while this particular case may be legitimate, I don’t know what’s worse: this one-sided edict or the fact IJ chose to print it.

Doctors do defensive medicine because they “can generate more income”? Is this guy serious??? The ONLY reason they do this is because of attorneys like this guy aspires to be. America has more plaintiff attorneys per capita than any other nation in the world…what’s THAT tell you?

The authors arguments are less than compelling. For example, he states:

“The effect that lawsuits have had on doctors’ malpractice insurance rates has also been negligible… Rates in those (non-reform) states … have gone up 6 percent — compared with 13 percent in non-tort-reform states.”

One might look at the data and say that insurance rates in non-reform states increased at more than double the rate of reform states. Hardly negligible in my book.

Another self-serving piece from the far left. Stating questionable facts and not understanding that a $100+ million verdict does have to be paid by somebody and that somebody is anybody paying for medical care or insurance for medical care. Our current President is a perfect example of how clueless lawyers are when it comes to anything economic. You want to know why there was no tort reform in Obamacare, listen to Howard Dean. Certainly a left leaning guy.

Yes Dave, It was a very revealing video. Most of our Congressmen and Senators are lawyers. Many have spent all their lives prior to getting elected suing people as plaintiffs attornies. Remember John Edwards, the infamous former Senator/Presidential candidate who was cheating on his cancer stricken wife and making babies with his girlfriend? He was a huge plaintiff attorney in NC and made himself wealthy with his shenanigans and browbeating companies and doctors into settlements or winning large awards. He was totally disgusting with his $500 haircuts and his mealy mouth rhetoric.

The editing at the Insurance Journal is laughable. I have seen several pieces like this in past issues.

In this instance, the editors printed an opinion piece by Steve Cohen as news without identifying it as such. Among other other significant faults: the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, whose statistics were cited, is a notoriously left-wing institution . . . not a reliable source of information—as any competent editor should know. The foundation’s bias should have been revealed to readers. I don’t think the editors have a clue about how contentious this issue is between the industry and the plaintiffs’ bar.

if you want to read naively edited stories about insurance, this is the magazine.

I can understand large sums of money being a deterent, but does it really solve the issue of malpractice? In some way, maybe some would say a slight way, it does. However, what would be a much better solution is for any case that results in a million dollar or more judgement, the offender (doctor, nurse) spend some time in prison. I tell you, I’d sure keep an eye on my patients vs doing something else. Then again, I know this would be a perfect world as some doctors and all nurses have the hospital also telling them what to do (paperwork, etc…) and you can’t be all places at all times.

I wonder what the Malpractice incidents will be when we have the huge shortage of doctors, nurses, PA’s that is projected to be in the next 7 to 10 years. I saw one article that projected the shortage to be 90,000 by 2020. The lawyers in the non-reform states are going to have a field day.